It is important to be clear. Those who voted in the GOP primaries for Trump (a small segment of all voters and of all who currently support him) earned more and were more commonly college educated than the “typical” (median) American. Of those voting in the GOP primary they were similar to Cruz voters and poorer than Rubio and Kasich voters.
Yes, yes he can. I was struck recently by a Dem leaning black commentator who said that Obama’s path to the Presidency relied largely upon a high turnout of blacks and that black turnout going 95% for Obama. If Hillary does not get this sort of black turnout the race, everything else being equal, is wide open. I realize everything else being equal is a large assumption to make in this race, but all Trump requires are some marginal changes in voting patterns.
People don’t like being laughed at *even by those they despise *(such as Furriners).
When Trump fans say they will vote for him even though they don’t like a lot of what he says–when they say they will vote for him simply because he will Stick It To The Elites–they are saying that they believe they will, even if just for a day, feel like they are one-up. They will feel, they believe, like life’s winners instead of life’s losers.
To get metaphorical: They identify with the shit-throwing prankster up on the high-school roof. They believe that prankster is One-Up as he targets the principal and teachers–they believe he has power over everyone he hits–and they identify with that. For that one moment, they feel everyone will stand back in awe and show them the same respect they believe is being shown to the shit-thrower on the roof.
What they don’t realize is that no one actually respects the shit-thrower. They see the tsk-tsking over the shit-thrower as proof of the shit-thrower’s power. They’re wrong about that. But it’s difficult to make them see that they’re wrong.
Luckily there is a real-life example that makes the abstraction concrete: the Brexit vote. We have plenty of evidence that a huge proportion of those voting to leave the EU believed that they were doing something that would place them One-Up in power over the elites who were urging “remain.” They believed their vote would make them respected; see how we reject your educated advice about the economic consequences of leaving! See how we do exactly as we please! See how we thumb our noses at those in power over us!
But what were the headlines, the next day? Not ‘look at all these voters–what a power to be reckoned with!’ No, it was ‘look at all these voters whose top Google searches AFTER voting were “what is Brexit?” and “what is the European Union?”…what a bunch of ignorant oafs!’
They tried to thumb their noses at those in power, but the world laughed at them as they succeeded only in sticking their thumbs in their own eyes. (Metaphorically.)
Trump fans are desperate to be treated as important people, worthy of respect. They think that they will “show those elites!” by voting for Trump. They will be disappointed to find that their vote garners them not respect, but instead pity and derision.
Mencken, no doubt, was a great writer but he also was a deeply reactionary anti-Semitic, racialist Social Darwinist who ironically enough would fit right into the Alt Right crowd to-day. Mencken was nothing more then a more erudite Milo Yiannopoulos.
And people say liberal smugness doesn’t exist. Have you ever considered that a large number of working-class people might not possess passports since they find it superfluous to own one when they can’t afford vacations due to lack of disposable income and many American workers simply don’t have much vacation time in the first place? For that matter, which group do you think is more likely to be pro-Trump? The overwhelmingly wealthy, white and Republican residents of Coto de Caza or Highland Park who can afford to go to Europe every summer and send their children to Acapulco or the Yucatan during spring break? Or is it the working-class black and Hispanic residents of the Bronx or South L.A. who if lucky are able to get a weekend off to go the nearest beach or Disneyland?
How many bourgeois urban social liberals in the Upper West Side or Berkeley ever want to visit West Virginia or Oklahoma? How many of them would never even consider going there because clearly those places are “shitholes” full of untermensch “inbred fundie redneck yokels”?
Or maybe reality is complex then the nice little liberal narratives peddled in exit polls. Perhaps a college degree doesn’t automatically grant one immunity against nativist politics, as Weimar-era Germany (among other places) amply demonstrated.
Clickbait stories to the contrary, the idea of mass regret among Brexit voters is largely a myth:
Might as well say the illegal immigrants are all murderous henchmen of the drug syndicates based on a few sensational accounts of violence.
So perhaps the Democratic Party should start making a broader populist appeal that speaks to Trump’s supporters?
a) who you want nominating judges and,
b) how “unacceptable” Trump can demonstrate himself to be
On the (b) side, Trump has had a bad week, but…
The (a) side is VERY strong.
HRC supporters should ask themselves how they would likely vote if The Republicans had fielded a more “solid” mainstream candidate (not Trump or Cruz) and there was more damning information out there on HRC (the kind that Trump supporters just “know” exists)*. I think most liberals would still support HRC, because … judges.
I don’t personally believe HRC is “crooked”, and I further don’t believe that ANY candidate this cycle is as crooked or shady as Trump, for lots of reasons, but let’s start with tax returns…
I think most people have appointing judges pretty far down the list. It tends to be something that people fall back on when a candidate is maybe failing issues tests they have higher up.
In fact, people should have it a lot higher because as we’ve seen, pretty much everything of note in the last 6 years happened in the courts and I would expect that to continue as long as Dems have the White House and Repubs have a lock on the House.
I agree judicial appointments are fairly far down the list of all voters on average. It’s high on the list though this time for conservative Republicans who don’t like Trump, whether to actually come out and vote for him anyway. That’s not a very large slice of the electorate, and not important if Trump isn’t close otherwise (no single group or state is that important in a non-close election). It’s a notable group though if the race gets back to being very close.
I guess the whole question can be interpreted somewhat differently if asked ‘why might Trump win’ as opposed to ‘why do Trump supporters (presumably strong ones, not just ‘he isn’t quite as bad as Clinton’ ones) think he’ll win’. The latter would surely include a lot of projection by them of their perceptions onto others, just as post after post on this forum often projects solid left perceptions onto everyone else (everyone must believe as I, they don’t, hence stupid or evil).
The former question IMO is fairly simple, Trump would win if he could focus against Clinton the negative perception of most voters of the state of the country. On the left that discontent is strongly aimed at the GOP, but for the key part of the electorate it’s aimed at both parties, even Trump’s core supporters are very anti-‘GOP establishment’. Trump has successfully established himself as the ‘outsider’ (whether or not that’s really accurate), and he’s relatively tenuously attached to a lot of GOP history/policies which turn persuadable voters off. She’s the multi-decade insider.
He hasn’t however strongly enough established himself, beyond his base, as a person to imagine in the Oval Office when it comes time to actually go out and vote. He seems to be going in the wrong direction on that. And I think that’s the main difference from when this was being discussed at RCP avg tied (why would one think a person tied in the polls might win?) to now, w/ Trump down ~7% points. There’s also though at least a slight drop in ‘wrong track’ opinion (was 69.7 IIRC last time I posted on this now 66.6), but that may even be slightly influenced by how bad Trump (the prophet of wrong track) has been looking personally not just events.
Not inherently, no. But the contempt for the common people shown in that quote is part and parcel of Mencken’s worldview and opinions similar to it have been used to uphold elite interests throughout history.
Lest folks misunderstand, Trump supporters had lower incomes that Kasich or Rubio supporters. But Republicans who turn out for primaries tend to have higher incomes than the average American. Low income voters are less likely to vote in the general never mind during the primary and are less likely to be members of the Republican party.
But Trump voters showed up and beat Rubio and Kasich over the head with their GEDs. What does that tell you? It tells me, these people vote. And they vote against people they perceive as part of the Beltway Normal.
Yes. Most of those same people, a plurality but not majority of those who voted in the GOP primaries, will vote Trump too. They are his floor. And they are a small number compared to those who vote in a general election, a small number of even non-college educated White voters - with high confidence I can predict that not voting will be more popular among non-college educated Whites than voting for Trump will be.
Which, once again, does not invalidate the quote. If you want to argue that it’s incorrect, at least provide some kind of cites. Otherwise we’re quickly approaching non sequitur territory.
I’m in Honolulu now, and there are still quite a few crazies here, just like I remembered. Today on the bus, this sweet-looking, gentle-speaking little old Hawaiian lady sat next to me on the bus, and when she saw Trump’s photo in a news story I was reading on my smartphone, she informed me she hoped he won, because “women shouldn’t run countries.”